Organically grown fruits and vegetables

watermelon

We are finally feeling some cool fall temperatures in the early morning. The afternoons the last few days have yielded some very pleasant working conditions.

Our fall crops are growing nicely in these conditions. As you can see in the image, the Hakurei turnips are ready for harvesting. We will have them in the markets for months now.

The spinach seedlings are up; our hardworking interns thinned them yesterday afternoon. The parsnips and rutabaga plants have sprouted; we completed the thinning and infill planting yesterday as well. The carrots have some very small, pale and thin roots starting to develop. The largest beet tops are about 8in tall and some of the beetroots are at the baby size.

Seasonality is also taking away some of the tastes we have been enjoying as the summer crops slowly fade. There will be no more of the Suyo Long Cucumbers that we have been eating for months. We’ll see them again next summer. The chiles are finally slowing down, too.

We will have the Tohono O’Odham yellow watermelons for awhile, though. When the frosts come, we will do a salvage harvest and keep the ripe ones until they sell out. The okra plants are still cranking, as are the sweet peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and mousemelons.

I hope the frost holds off a little while longer, although I won’t be sad to see the end of the grasshoppers, harlequin bugs and cucumber beetles after the first few hard freezes. The last two years the first hard freeze happened on November 2 and then it was warm for a few more weeks.

We have room for a few more CSA shareholders. If you would like to sign up for the next season, we will continue taking payments/reservations for our 16-week fall/winter CSA share program, deliveries for which will begin the middle of November and run through the middle of March 2017. Shares will cost $250 for 16 weekly deliveries.

We will have the forms at the markets this weekend, and they are also available on our website, here.

The end of the monsoon delivered nearly an inch of rain at the farm – 0.85″ in the last week. The total rainfall at the farm since late June is 8.01″ – a pretty good rainy season this year.

Lately we have planted two types of beets, onions, carrots, lettuce mix, salad mix and radishes. Today and tomorrow we will get in the parsnips, rutabagas, kales and various greens.

We have started removing the shadecloth from the growing beds in preparation for the fall and winter growing season.

If you have signed up for the fall/winter CSA season, your email address will be added to the next CSA newsletter email distribution list and you will start receiving emails in a few weeks.

As mentioned in earlier newsletters, if you would like to sign up for our next CSA season, we will continue taking payments/reservations for our 16-week fall/winter CSA share program, deliveries for which will begin the middle of November and run through the middle of March 2017. Shares will cost $250 for 16 weekly deliveries. We will have the forms at the markets this weekend and they are also available on our website, here.

We had a very nice rain event when the remains of Hurricane Newton passed through, receiving 1.34in of soft, gentle rain that soaked in nicely. Since then it rained a couple more times, so we are just below the 30-year average to-date for the monsoon. It is starting to feel like fall with cool mornings, but we are hoping for one more chance at some monsoon rainfall.

As mentioned last week, we are nearing the end of the spring/summer CSA share deliveries – the last deliveries will be September 25 at Rillito and September 28 at Green Valley.

For those of you interested in signing up for the next round, this weekend/week we will begin taking payments/reservations for our 16-week fall/winter CSA share program, deliveries for which will begin the last weekend of October and run through the end of February 2017. Shares will cost $250 for 16 weekly deliveries. We will have the forms at the markets this weekend and they are also available on our website, here. Please let us know if you are interested in signing up!